Page:The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson Vol 1.djvu/14

 related in the Memoirs, he met Harriette a few weeks before his father's death.

The Memoirs were first published in 1825 ''by John Joseph Stockdale, who issued them in paper cover parts, and so great was the demand that a barrier had to be erected in Stockdale's shop to regulate the crowd that came to buy. Thirty editions are said to have been sold in one year, and the work was also pirated by T. Douglas, E. Thomas, and others. The present edition is reprinted from the original paper cover parts.''

''The Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Worcester, Lord Alvanley, "Poodle" Byng, Beau Brummell, "King" Allen, Lord Yarmouth (Thackeray's Marquis of Steyne), and the third Duke of Leinster, were among the numerous men of rank and fashion who came to Harriette's house, and what is really valuable in her book is the almost photographic fidelity with which she reproduces the conversations and traits of her visitors. She observed the men of her "salon" as only a clever woman can, and, because of this, the Memoirs are lifted from worthlessncss and form a most interesting addition to the society chronicles of the time. Sir Walter Scott in his Journal, December 9, 1825, writes as follows about the Memoirs and Harriette:''

"… there is some good retailing of conversations, in which the style of the speaker, so far as known to me, is exactly imitated. … Some one asked Lord Ay, himself very sorrily handled from time to time, if Harriette Wilson had been pretty correct on the whole. 'Why, faith,' he replied, 'I believe so.' … I think," proceeds Sir Walter, " I once supped in her 2